Inside Trump’s War in Iran
“Everybody loves a winner.”
Several weeks into the Iraq War, after U.S. forces had swept to Baghdad, President George W. Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf festooned with the now infamous banner that read “Mission Accomplished”—of course, the war continued on for years more.
Since then, Trump has said—for many years, on constant repeat—“What a dummy, he claimed victory, he should have just gone home. And nobody would’ve cared what the fuck happened after that.”
U.S. foreign policy, administered by an expert bureaucracy with a range of economic, geopolitical, ideological, and humanitarian interests, saw America best served by a complex, Rube Goldberg system of often contradictory agendas and multi-layered decision-making, which resulted in forever wars as well as lots of PowerPoint presentations.
It was this foreign policy establishment, in Trump’s view, and the deep state—with Dick Cheney, and his family, still a frequent target of Trump’s attacks—that kept poor Bush in Iraq. And indeed, running against the foreign policy establishment and the deep state helped make Trump president.
“All the Generals really want to work at McKinsey,” Trump would often say during his first administration, annoyed that they were “over-explainers.” They were always planning for, he’d add, in the mimicking falsetto voice he reserved for his highest disdain, drawing the word out with merciless scorn for its wish-washy overthinking, “con-tin-gencies.”
